Chapter 63: Someone Took Them

Astrid

I barely slept, my mind stuck on the same loop all night. The notes had been right there on the table. All of it. Gone.

I walked into the common room the next morning expecting some kind of chaos, Reed and Xander scrambling through the apartment like the notes might materialize under a cushion if they searched hard enough. Instead they were both already sitting there, unusually calm.

Reed had several remaining books spread across the table. Xander leaned against the counter, uncharacteristically serious.

"Did either of you find them?" I asked.

Reed shook his head. He’d checked the apartment before I woke up. Nothing else was missing, just our project materials. No broken lock. No damaged window. Nothing disturbed anywhere else.

That bothered me. If someone had broken in, there should have been some sign of it.

"They didn’t need to break anything," Xander said. "They had access."

I sat down slowly, the weight of that settling in. "So someone who knew where they were took them."

"Exactly," Reed said.

This wasn’t random. Someone had specifically wanted our project to fail.

Reed suggested we retrace everything from the previous day, and we worked through the timeline together, piecing it out like a school-yard mystery. We’d worked in the apartment. Taken some books to class. Come back. Eaten dinner. Continued researching. The notes had still been there after dinner.

Then, sometime in the gap between that and Reed reaching for them, they weren’t.

"Who was around us?" Xander asked.

I thought back, listing a few classmates who’d seen us working. Then something surfaced.

Selene.

She’d asked questions about our project recently, nothing overt, nothing suspicious at the time, but standing out clearly now.

"Selene knew what we were researching," I said.

Xander’s expression sharpened immediately. Reed asked exactly what she’d said, and I explained the comments she’d made, the interest she’d shown specifically in the twins’ project.

"That’s convenient," Xander said.

I didn’t want to jump straight to conclusions. Selene hated me, sure, but stealing an entire semester’s worth of research felt like a different kind of problem entirely. Reed agreed we shouldn’t accuse anyone without proof.

"Who else knew?" he asked.

I ran through the list again. Xander cut in before I finished.

"Someone who wanted you to fail."

I looked at him. Suddenly Selene felt like the most likely answer we had.

By the time I reached the academy that morning, the missing project had already become gossip, faster than I’d expected. Apparently someone had seen the three of us searching through the apartment. Now half the school had theories, some claiming a rival team stole our research out of competitive spite, others insisting it was revenge against the princes themselves.

I was mortified. I didn’t want the whole academy knowing our supposedly impressive royal project had gotten robbed of its own work.

Ivy and Camilla found me in the hallway. "Why does everyone look at you like you committed a crime?" Ivy asked.

I explained. Her reaction was immediate.

"Selene."

I groaned. She reminded me Selene had been asking about our project lately, mentioning she’d even seen her talking to one of her friends about the twins’ assignment specifically.

"Did you actually see her steal anything?" I asked.

"No," Ivy admitted.

Still only suspicion. Ivy joked that if we made a list of everyone who hated me, we’d need an entirely separate notebook. I laughed despite everything, though her expression sobered a second later.

"Just be careful," she said. "Selene doesn’t exactly play fair."

I looked across the hallway. Selene stood there, and for a brief second, our eyes met. She smiled.

I didn’t smile back.

Later that day, I noticed one of her three friends whispering something urgently, Selene listening with her usual composed expression. The girl noticed me watching and stopped talking immediately, and Selene turned toward me with a smile that felt just a touch too innocent.

"What?" Xander asked, catching me staring.

I told him. Reed followed my gaze, watching quietly without saying anything. Selene walked off with her group a moment later.

"Think it’s her?" Xander asked.

"I don’t know," I said.

"Neither do we," Reed said. "Which is why we won’t accuse her."

"Then what do we do?" I asked.

He and Xander exchanged a look, that quiet, instant understanding twins seemed to share without needing a single word.

"We let the thief steal something else," Xander said, grinning.

I stared at both of them like they’d lost their minds.

Back at the apartment, Reed laid out the plan properly. We’d create fake research, something convincing enough to look important, and leave it somewhere visible but not so visible it seemed intentional.

"What if nobody takes it?" I asked.

"Then we’ll know it wasn’t Selene."

"And if someone does?"

"Then we’ll know someone’s watching us."

Xander clearly enjoyed the whole thing far too much, helping draft the fake information with genuine enthusiasm. We titled it Royal Bloodline Archive, Reference: Restricted Lineage Records, made it look exactly like the kind of breakthrough our real project desperately needed.

"Where are we putting it?" I asked.

Reed chose a spot visible enough to notice but only if someone was already looking through our things deliberately.

I felt like we were setting a trap for a mouse.

"What?" Xander asked, catching my expression.

"Nothing."

"You think this is ridiculous."

"I think we’re ridiculous."

He grinned. "You’re forgetting something."

"What?"

He gestured at himself and Reed. "We’re princes. We can afford to be dramatic."

I rolled my eyes, laughing despite everything, and for a moment the stolen notes didn’t feel quite so heavy.

We put the plan into motion later that day and waited. I was fully convinced nothing would come of it. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. Twenty minutes. Still nothing.

I started thinking we’d wasted an entire afternoon for no reason.

Xander opened his mouth, probably to complain, when Reed suddenly held up a hand for silence.

Footsteps.

I froze. We tucked ourselves out of sight, able to watch the door without being seen from it. It opened slowly.

Selene slipped inside, glancing around carefully before moving straight toward the bait we’d left out.

My eyes widened. She picked up the fake research, and I watched her expression shift into something satisfied, almost triumphant.

She thought she’d won.

Before she could turn to leave, Reed stepped into view. Xander appeared behind her, blocking the doorway.

Selene froze completely, the fake paper still clutched in her hand. She turned slowly, and I stepped out from where I’d been hiding, watching her face as she registered exactly what had happened.

For once, she had absolutely nothing clever to say.

Xander glanced at the paper in her hand, then back up at her face.

"Got you," he said.